Listen to this post:
To illustrate the story of my poem and song “I’m Not Done” the other day, I decided to take another black and white selfie, and when I saw the results, I marveled at the difference.
When I first posted the poem in January 2024, yes, I wanted to look resolved and committed, and the other day I wanted to renew the commitment on the theme of “Still not done.”
But look at those two photos. One shows the lingering grief of losing my soulmate six months earlier. I may be defiantly proclaiming, “I’m not done,” but that guy is still lost. In the new photo, the twinkle in my eye is back and maybe I’m about to smile. One guy is resolved, the newer guy is mischievous.
Of course, there’s 30 more months of healing between the pictures, but what else?
Let me share a third picture and a story you may have heard from me before.
I went through more than three quarters of 2024 in a quiet haze. My memories of the year are mostly jumbled. I was going through the motions — I wasn’t done, but I wasn’t all there, either.
Finally, I imagine God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” I met Mary in church shortly before that Thanksgiving.
We come to church separately every Sunday; I play with the worship team, which arrives about an hour early to go through the hymns and songs, and Mary arrives about 15 minutes before the service. Not long ago a friend told me, “We can always tell when Mary has arrived, because you light up when you see her.”
I see something in the selfies we have taken that wasn’t there for a very long time — a big smile on my face. Because of how deep my love for Carol Jean was, and how desolate I was to lose her, finding a new soulmate has given me a joy as high as the grief was deep, an emotion not unlike that of a teenager’s first love. It’s not replacing my feelings for Cj; rather, my feelings for Cj made me understand how special and fragile love is, and I cherish this opportunity to love again.
Look at these two kids, the boy so happy he doesn’t care that smiling so wide exposes how crooked his teeth are, and the girl who knows her guy loves her to the moon and back. Never mind the wrinkles and the creaky joints; this is a boy and a girl, impossibly in love again after losing the loves of their lives.
And let me repeat what I say whenever I tell this story, to you who have not lost your soulmate and still can hold them near: Cherish every moment you have, and say “I love you” every chance you can.
